Goal 2: Create a thriving global culture within the University Objective 2.6: Increase the percentage of graduating students who have participated in an intercultural experience to 100%
Key Performance Indicator (Action to complete) for 2015-16:
Propose adding "participation in an intercultural experience" as a graduation requirement.
What is the purpose of this wiki?
The purpose of this wiki is to collectively (as a faculty) help define what "participation in an intercultural experience" means.
What is an intercultural experience? (add your definition by first clicking on Edit above, or by emailing it to alang@oru.edu).
Your Name (Optional)
Write your definition of "intercultural experience" in one of the rows below. Please do not overwrite other people's entries.
Jim Shelton
A way to experience intercultural and international experience right here in Tulsa is to visit, participate in and/or serve international churches. Some examples are the Maronite Church (Lebanese) Antiochian Orthodox (Syrian). Greek Orthodox, Korean Baptists and Pentecostals. Burmese Christian groups, etc. Helping them in Christian education of their children, paralegal and social help could also help and expose students and faculty to the "universe next door".
Participation in ethnic festivals at churches and synagogues is another option.
Dr Samuel Thorpe
In the Theology Department, we consider "intercultural" to include societal elements such as language, customs, country of origin, worldview ideas, and religion. We can use an ORU missions trip as one way to meet this requirement, or a practicum in the USA where the societal elements differ from the student who has taken the Practicum course, such as American Indian Reservations, International churches or church organizations, study abroad, and other similar venues. The practicum must be approved by the professor of record and the Chair of the department. All majors in the Undergraduate Theology (UGT) department will be required to pass the Intercultural Field Experience course as of Fall 2016.
Even Culp
I would hope that whatever definition we come up with, we would operationalize the term by including experiences similar to what we offer within the Communication Arts and Media Department in a course called Campaign Strategies. Here, students use their interest and skill sets they have developed over four years of college to assist in solving a problem in a developing nation. This requires the student to put all of their learning towards this effort, while being sensitive to the cultural context in which the work would be done. Such real-world applications are meaningful in helping students realize how they can have a global impact within their area of interest and major. The outcomes and products produced from this class have high value, when our students go to interview for positions within various industries.
John Korstad
I like what's on the Univ. of Toronto's website (https://www.studentlife.utoronto.ca/cie/intercultural):
"International experience is about more than crossing borders and visiting other countries. It’s about the meeting of different people, languages, traditions, values and ways of interpreting the world — international experience is intercultural experience."
Thus, I suggest that "intercultural experience" shouldn't be limited to foreign travel (although I highly endorse that). One of the strengths of ORU is the wonderful diversity on our campus. Students should be encouraged to consider this as important and something that they can reflect on in any assessment criterion that may eventually be implemented.
Jay Gary
It would be great for students to engage local Tulsa refugee resettlement programs, whether church based, YMCA or state programs, and engage new refugee families at their point of need. Students could serve as mentors to school age kids, help families with home rennovations, and eat meals together. The goal would be to extend friendship to a refugee family and welcome them as Americans as they work towards their citizenship. This might also involve serving as volunteers in running programs, sports, arts, or technology or English classes for new immigrants.
Bob Leland
A successful intercultural experience is achieved when a student learns to look at things from another person's point of view. This involves developing relationships. This is difficult to program, however requiring intercultural exposure is a good step.
William Ranahan
If I want to participate in an intercultural experience, it seems to me that the first step is to clearly define "my culture." This would include, but not necessarily be limited to, language, geographic location, diet, religion, secular traditions, and socio-economic class. Once I have clarified what "my culture" is - it becomes much easier to see what an intercultural experience, for me personally, looks like. (Incidentally, this approach has the added benefit of self identification) Having established a clear definition of what my culture includes I can safely say that any immersive* experience which exposes me to other languages, geographic locations, diets, religions, secular traditions, or socio-economic classes must necessarily be intercultural. *(immersive meaning an experience that enhances my capacity to appreciate the "other")
Sherri Tapp
There are numerous definitions of "intercultural" in the literature, including those in Fred E Jandts' book "An Introduction to Intercultural Communication: Identities in a Global Community" (2015). Additionally, I have had great success using the Multicultural Education Pavilion and its plethora of activities, collaborative exercises, quizzes and practical application exercises to expose students and then to stretch them as they move toward cultural proficiency. Check out: http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/
I teach a class that all of our COE grad students must take: Group Relations & Multicultural Issues. It involves real world opportunities both in the classroom and in the surrounding community to engage in :hand-on" learning whether it means having future leaders serve children of diverse ethnicities and abilities in a child abuse shelter, tour the Sherwin Miller Jewish museum and cultural center with Bob Golan (Holocaust survivor and author), tour the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park and learn the history of the Tulsa's Black Wall Street and the 1921 race riot and developing an understanding about the culture of poverty and how it affects all aspects of life. We spend quality time learning about international cultures directly from guest speakers from Africa, Native American tribal representatives, Israel, Asia, the Caribbean, etc. We hold intense meaningful discussion on what is called in the literature "White Privilege," and exactly what that means and how we as Christians can advocate for marginalized populations domestically and abroad.
Each year, I coordinate the annual ORU Cultural Event: A Global Celebration that is held on campus and open to the entire Tulsa and surrounding community. Attendees enjoy food "from around the world," music, deaf culture demonstrations, poetry, rap, dance, exposure to diverse languages including Patois. I think it is possible to make this kind of class a requirement for all ORU students and thereby meet Goal 2.6.
Mike Fulton
I believe that an "Intercultural Experience" involves immersing oneself for an extended period in another culture. Study abroad is the most commonly cited example, and I believe other experiences should offer comparable degrees and lengths of cultural contact, in order to satisfy this requirement. For U.S. students, the best-case scenario would probably be extensive, close contact with a non-U.S. culture.
What are the core competencies involved in an intercultural experience? (add your ideas by editing the wiki, or by emailing them to alang@oru.edu)
Name
(Optional)
List your ideas of core competencies for intercultural experience in one of the rows below. Please do not overwrite other entries.
Dr Samuel Thorpe
UGT primarily is looking for evangelistic capability, ethical behaviors, global/historical perspective, communication skills, interpersonal skills, appreciation of cultural/linguistic differences, and leadership capacities in the Intercultural Field Experience course.
John Korstad
Humility; respectful "tolerance" of others who may have different viewpoints on certain topics than we have (this doesn't mean compromising our Christian values; it means not becoming dogmatic, judgmental, or self-righteous); meekness (as exemplified by Christ); forgiveness; listening to the Holy Spirit; ...
Bob Leland
In engineering, one of the student outcomes required by ABET, our accreditation agency is:
The broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global and societal context. The idea more broadly would be to understand the global implications of your professional activities. Anything that helps with this would be positive for our students. Learning to listen to people from different cultures and understand that not everyone sees things the same way, as well as understanding ones own blind spots are important competencies.
William Ranahan
If an intercultural experience results in the enhancement of my appreciation for and understanding of an aspect of non-native culture - then I should be able to clearly articulate this newfound insight. Assessment could include integration of this novel understanding with the correlative in my culture. For instance, other cultures eat different foods - some of these provide nutrition lacking in my diet - therefore inclusion of these intercultural foods would be beneficial. Other cultures live with much less consumption of consumer goods and yet seem to be content, perhaps consumption of consumer goods is not directly related to happiness etc.
Sherri Tapp
The literature indicates that the first step towards cultural competence or proficiency is Awareness (awareness that "different" does not mean "wrong" and that "different" can enhance a homogenized group by bringing new, refreshing perspectives). This is a core competency followed by the 2nd core competency: Knowledge: once one becomes aware of a rich variety of meanings and perspectives, it becomes possible to begin to approach the 3rd competency: Skills, which involve developing a culturally proficient skill set enabling one to move among various people groups, engaging them and being of valuable service without losing one's own identity.
Mike Fulton
For evangelization, business, diplomacy, and other international endeavors, language skills open doors in a unique way. For that reason, I believe foreign language competency should be a component of the intercultural experience.
Ruby Libertus
Dr. Reid-Martinez and Dr. Easterling,In case this helpful, but for IR and GS the International and Intercultural experience is an essential component in addition to our academic side, especially since I really believe in the practical and relevant and preparing students for virtually any part of the world. Below is some of what we do:
Global Crisis Simulation-preparing students to represent a country or regional organization and they have to react to a situation or crisis man-made or natural. The last time we had 115 join us and 2 different schools. This year we are going to have 4 schools join us and are collaborating closely with Communication and including the Nursing drill. The students are going to represent 5 countries and Security Council and Arab League. This will be my 10th GCS. The student that started this with me is a special agent for the State dept. so does this in real life now and of course Ms. Patria Apy does this with the government with money spent on scenarios.
Model United Nations-we prepare students to represent countries on international issues and they learn about diplomacy, international cooperation and public speaking. This year we are Finland and Chile.
Global U-through the club we had an many Inter-cultural events from themed International events-White House Mock Luncheon, Night in Persia, International Gala-Mexico, Escape to India. We have a concept called 'This is Me' in which we concentrate on region or group-to stomp out the ignorance since International students felt sometimes students on campus didn't always seem so informed about how international students live back home. We highlighted Latin America and Asia, and this semester we will probably focus on American Indian cultures and Africa and we are working on an International Art Exhibition in January.
International local Internships-we continuously have interns at Tulsa Global Alliance, United Nations Association and World Compassion and now One Hope.
Academic International Trips-have taken students to the U.S Embassy, USAID, to visit ngos, refugees, orphanages, rehabilitation centers, to meet Government ministers and Prime Minister, cultural centers, etc. When we have taken students to Washington D.C we have taken students to State Dept, Embassies, International Justice Mission, Foreign Relations Committee, Pentagon, Congress etc.
When the Syria crisis was escalating we had a Syrian come in on campus to speak about some of the realities on the ground for him and his family there. We of course had Terry Law come and speak to 120 people about the refugee crisis and what they are doing to help.
We are excited that students are looking at various options for study abroad including Jordan.
We are continuously attending International events and meetings in town, when Ambassadors or special international visitors come to speak or discussion on international issues.
I have a graph on what how we like to take an incoming student and what an ORU grad that has gone through the IR or GS program could look like after the academic classes and the practical aspects if anyone is interested.
We also have lots of pictures of the above activities.
Apologies if this is not useful.
This effort will be coordinated by Dr. Marcela Chaván (mchavan@oru.edu), Director of ORU's International Center (mchavan@oru.edu) and Dr. Cal Easterling, Dean of Institutional Effectiveness (__ceasterling@oru.edu__), with technical assistance from Andrew Lang (alang@oru.edu).
The materials below may be useful for gaining perspective regarding intercultural experiences.
Defining an intercultural experience
One description of an intercultural experience might be an encounter between people from different countries or an experience between individuals from other cultural backgrounds in the same country, for example, from other regional, linguistic, ethnic or religious backgrounds.
Literature suggests that for this encounter to be an intercultural experience students should be equipped with some understanding of the other’s culture. This understanding referred to in different ways from intercultural competence to intercultural effectiveness, from to intercultural sensitivity to cultural intelligence and involves cultural, sociocultural and psycho cultural layers of information and competency.
Deardorff (2011) defines intercultural competence as “the ability to interact effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations, based on specific attitudes, intercultural knowledge, skills and reflection” and lists four key components for intercultural competence:
1- Reflection and assessment
2- Critical thinking skills
3- Attitudinal elements such as respect, openness and curiosity serve as a basis for the process of development of the competence
4- Ability to see life from the perspective of the other.
The intercultural sensitivity model by Bennett and Bennett (2004) perceives the development of intercultural competence through experiencing cultural differences and refers to a person’s awareness and knowledge, attitudes and values, skills and behavior when operating in intercultural contexts.
Cultural intelligence, an individual’s capability to function and manage effectively in culturally diverse settings, could be a concept that would be of benefit to defining and measuring effectiveness of international trips or programs as well as programs sending students into a variety of workplaces that are culturally diverse.
Cultural intelligence is rooted in other intelligences, such as emotional and social intelligence, but emphasizes that being in an intercultural setting requires additional dimensions of intelligence. Earley and Ang’s work identifies four factors that are critical to cultural intelligence: cognitive skills, metacognitive skills, a motivational dimension and a behavioral dimension (Earley & Ang, 2003).
References
Bennett, & M. Bennett (Eds.), Handbook of intercultural training (pp. 147-165). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Earley, P. C., & Ang, S. (2003). Cultural Intelligence: Individual Interactions Across Cultures. Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press.
Deardorff, D.K. (2011). Assessing intercultural competence. New directions for institutional research. No. 149. Wiley Periodicals. DOI: 10.1002/ir.381.
Kim, K., Kirkman, B. L., & Chen, G. (2008). Cultural Intelligence and International Assignment Effectiveness. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Disagree? Make a proposed change to the above definition by emailing your suggestions to Dr. Marcela Chaván (mchavan@oru.edu)
What do you feel should qualify as an intercultural experience at ORU?
Completion of a mission trip? Click here for a sample of Rubrics for mission trip experiences.
Completion of a study abroad experience?
Simply talking with someone from another culture?
Please submit your suggestions by using this Google Form or by emailing them to Andrew Lang (alang@oru.edu)
Welcome to the ORU Objective 2.6 Wiki!
ORU's Five-Year Adaptive Plan
Goal 2: Create a thriving global culture within the UniversityObjective 2.6: Increase the percentage of graduating students who have participated in an intercultural experience to 100%
What is the purpose of this wiki?
The purpose of this wiki is to collectively (as a faculty) help define what "participation in an intercultural experience" means.
What is an intercultural experience? (add your definition by first clicking on Edit above, or by emailing it to alang@oru.edu).
(Optional)
Participation in ethnic festivals at churches and synagogues is another option.
"International experience is about more than crossing borders and visiting other countries. It’s about the meeting of different people, languages, traditions, values and ways of interpreting the world — international experience is intercultural experience."
Thus, I suggest that "intercultural experience" shouldn't be limited to foreign travel (although I highly endorse that). One of the strengths of ORU is the wonderful diversity on our campus. Students should be encouraged to consider this as important and something that they can reflect on in any assessment criterion that may eventually be implemented.
I teach a class that all of our COE grad students must take: Group Relations & Multicultural Issues. It involves real world opportunities both in the classroom and in the surrounding community to engage in :hand-on" learning whether it means having future leaders serve children of diverse ethnicities and abilities in a child abuse shelter, tour the Sherwin Miller Jewish museum and cultural center with Bob Golan (Holocaust survivor and author), tour the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park and learn the history of the Tulsa's Black Wall Street and the 1921 race riot and developing an understanding about the culture of poverty and how it affects all aspects of life. We spend quality time learning about international cultures directly from guest speakers from Africa, Native American tribal representatives, Israel, Asia, the Caribbean, etc. We hold intense meaningful discussion on what is called in the literature "White Privilege," and exactly what that means and how we as Christians can advocate for marginalized populations domestically and abroad.
Each year, I coordinate the annual ORU Cultural Event: A Global Celebration that is held on campus and open to the entire Tulsa and surrounding community. Attendees enjoy food "from around the world," music, deaf culture demonstrations, poetry, rap, dance, exposure to diverse languages including Patois. I think it is possible to make this kind of class a requirement for all ORU students and thereby meet Goal 2.6.
What are the core competencies involved in an intercultural experience? (add your ideas by editing the wiki, or by emailing them to alang@oru.edu)
(Optional)
The broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global and societal context. The idea more broadly would be to understand the global implications of your professional activities. Anything that helps with this would be positive for our students. Learning to listen to people from different cultures and understand that not everyone sees things the same way, as well as understanding ones own blind spots are important competencies.
Global Crisis Simulation-preparing students to represent a country or regional organization and they have to react to a situation or crisis man-made or natural. The last time we had 115 join us and 2 different schools. This year we are going to have 4 schools join us and are collaborating closely with Communication and including the Nursing drill. The students are going to represent 5 countries and Security Council and Arab League. This will be my 10th GCS. The student that started this with me is a special agent for the State dept. so does this in real life now and of course Ms. Patria Apy does this with the government with money spent on scenarios.
Model United Nations-we prepare students to represent countries on international issues and they learn about diplomacy, international cooperation and public speaking. This year we are Finland and Chile.
Global U-through the club we had an many Inter-cultural events from themed International events-White House Mock Luncheon, Night in Persia, International Gala-Mexico, Escape to India. We have a concept called 'This is Me' in which we concentrate on region or group-to stomp out the ignorance since International students felt sometimes students on campus didn't always seem so informed about how international students live back home. We highlighted Latin America and Asia, and this semester we will probably focus on American Indian cultures and Africa and we are working on an International Art Exhibition in January.
International local Internships-we continuously have interns at Tulsa Global Alliance, United Nations Association and World Compassion and now One Hope.
Academic International Trips-have taken students to the U.S Embassy, USAID, to visit ngos, refugees, orphanages, rehabilitation centers, to meet Government ministers and Prime Minister, cultural centers, etc. When we have taken students to Washington D.C we have taken students to State Dept, Embassies, International Justice Mission, Foreign Relations Committee, Pentagon, Congress etc.
When the Syria crisis was escalating we had a Syrian come in on campus to speak about some of the realities on the ground for him and his family there. We of course had Terry Law come and speak to 120 people about the refugee crisis and what they are doing to help.
We are excited that students are looking at various options for study abroad including Jordan.
We are continuously attending International events and meetings in town, when Ambassadors or special international visitors come to speak or discussion on international issues.
I have a graph on what how we like to take an incoming student and what an ORU grad that has gone through the IR or GS program could look like after the academic classes and the practical aspects if anyone is interested.
We also have lots of pictures of the above activities.
Apologies if this is not useful.
This effort will be coordinated by Dr. Marcela Chaván (mchavan@oru.edu), Director of ORU's International Center (mchavan@oru.edu) and Dr. Cal Easterling, Dean of Institutional Effectiveness (__ceasterling@oru.edu__), with technical assistance from Andrew Lang (alang@oru.edu).
The materials below may be useful for gaining perspective regarding intercultural experiences.
Defining an intercultural experience
One description of an intercultural experience might be an encounter between people from different countries or an experience between individuals from other cultural backgrounds in the same country, for example, from other regional, linguistic, ethnic or religious backgrounds.
Literature suggests that for this encounter to be an intercultural experience students should be equipped with some understanding of the other’s culture. This understanding referred to in different ways from intercultural competence to intercultural effectiveness, from to intercultural sensitivity to cultural intelligence and involves cultural, sociocultural and psycho cultural layers of information and competency.
Deardorff (2011) defines intercultural competence as “the ability to interact effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations, based on specific attitudes, intercultural knowledge, skills and reflection” and lists four key components for intercultural competence:
1- Reflection and assessment
2- Critical thinking skills
3- Attitudinal elements such as respect, openness and curiosity serve as a basis for the process of development of the competence
4- Ability to see life from the perspective of the other.
The intercultural sensitivity model by Bennett and Bennett (2004) perceives the development of intercultural competence through experiencing cultural differences and refers to a person’s awareness and knowledge, attitudes and values, skills and behavior when operating in intercultural contexts.
Cultural intelligence, an individual’s capability to function and manage effectively in culturally diverse settings, could be a concept that would be of benefit to defining and measuring effectiveness of international trips or programs as well as programs sending students into a variety of workplaces that are culturally diverse.
Cultural intelligence is rooted in other intelligences, such as emotional and social intelligence, but emphasizes that being in an intercultural setting requires additional dimensions of intelligence. Earley and Ang’s work identifies four factors that are critical to cultural intelligence: cognitive skills, metacognitive skills, a motivational dimension and a behavioral dimension (Earley & Ang, 2003).
References
Bennett, & M. Bennett (Eds.), Handbook of intercultural training (pp. 147-165). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Earley, P. C., & Ang, S. (2003). Cultural Intelligence: Individual Interactions Across Cultures. Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press.
Deardorff, D.K. (2011). Assessing intercultural competence. New directions for institutional research. No. 149. Wiley Periodicals. DOI: 10.1002/ir.381.
Kim, K., Kirkman, B. L., & Chen, G. (2008). Cultural Intelligence and International Assignment Effectiveness. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Disagree? Make a proposed change to the above definition by emailing your suggestions to Dr. Marcela Chaván (mchavan@oru.edu)
What do you feel should qualify as an intercultural experience at ORU?
Please submit your suggestions by using this Google Form or by emailing them to Andrew Lang (alang@oru.edu)
Reading Resources
Papers:- Conceptualising Intercultural Effectiveness for University Teaching. Stone 2015
- Learning global citizenship? Exploring connections between the local and the global. Mayo, Gaventa, and Rooke 2015
- Civic Engagement and Global Citizenship in a University Context. Munck 2010
Other readings:- Multicultural-crosscultural-intercultural
Sample of experiences in other universities:- AAC&U
- Dalhousie University
- Purdue
Wikipedia:- Intercultural competence
- Intercultural learning
- Intercultural communication
Do you have some good reading material? Email Andrew Lang (alang@oru.edu) your suggestions.What else?
Any other ideas/comments/suggestions, please email Dr. Marcela Chaván, Director of ORU's International Center. (mchavan@oru.edu)